Friday, February 22, 2013

Peggy Noonan calls it government by “freakout.” You might
consider it brinksmanship. It’s classic Obama; leadership by demagoguery.

By now, we all know the script only too well.

Threaten the populace with a calamity to end all calamities.

Insist that the only way to avert it is to give him what he
wants.

Gin up public sentiment against those who would, by denying
him what he wants, precipitate Armageddon.

Watch his opponents submit to his will.

Pat himself on the back for a job well done.

What does Obama want? Jonah Goldberg says that Obama wants more
tax increases:

Obama
wants more tax hikes and thinks he can convince the country to accept them if
the choice is between what he calls reasonable revenue increases and
catastrophic cuts that will let people die in the streets, leave children to go
hungry and illiterate, and allow poisoned food to sit rancid on supermarket
shelves.

I agree, but only up to a point. It is more likely that
Obama wants, above all else, to get his way. He wants to assert his authority
over the opposition. He does not care to compromise or negotiate, because he
does not know how. He wants to impose his will on his opponents because that is
the only way he can feel like he is really in charge.

It is a portrait of the modern demagogue. By now, however, Obama’s
sounding like the boy who cried wolf… once too often. Even if the looming sequester is a calamity, Obama is no longer a credible Paul Revere.

White House threats about sequestration sound more
and more hollow. Peggy Noonan offers some mild ridicule:

Seven
hundred thousand children will be dropped from Head Start. Six hundred thousand
women and children will be dropped from aid programs. Meat won't be inspected.
Seven thousand TSA workers will be laid off, customs workers too, and air
traffic controllers. Lines at airports will be impossible. The Navy will slow
down the building of an aircraft carrier. Troop readiness will be disrupted,
weapons programs slowed or stalled, civilian contractors stiffed, uniformed
first responders cut back. Our nuclear deterrent will be indefinitely
suspended. Ha, made that one up, but give them time.

Jonah Goldberg offers a more biting satire:

We are
just days away from a cataclysm of biblical proportions. The cuts foretold in
the Budget Control Act of 2011 are young as far as prophecies go, but
apparently they are every bit as terrifying as rivers of blood and plagues of
locusts. Any day now we can expect White House spokesman Jay Carney to take to
the podium and read a prepared statement: “And when he opened the seventh seal,
there was a small decrease in the rate of increase in federal spending.”

Obviously, there comes a time in everyone’s life when he has
to take a stand. Is now the time for Republicans to stand up to Obama?

Bullies and demagogues have this in common. They can never
be placated by a single victory. Submit once and they will never let up until you submit again and again.

Obviously, the administration has important cards to play on
sequestration. It will cut the services that are most visible and most vital.
When something bad happens, as it will be hoping and expecting, it will blame
Republicans. Its flunkies in the mainstream media will tar and
feather the Republicans for whatever goes wrong, regardless of whether it
has anything to do with sequester.

Goldberg summarizes the situation:

If an
agency has a billion-dollar budget and someone proposes cutting a dollar from
its scheduled increase in funding, that dollar will be the one earmarked for
the screw needed to keep a bridge from collapsing on a grade school’s
Thanksgiving parade.

He continues:

The GOP
will probably lose the public-relations battle over the sequester, because
that’s the Republicans’ job in the age of Obama. A U.S. ambassador is murdered
in a terrorist attack the administration ineptly responded to — and blamed on a
video — but the only real story is that Republicans are so crazy, they want to
know what happened. The president nominates a middle-brow pol to run the
Defense Department, one who must recant all of his well-known views in order to
get the job, and the story is how irrational the GOP is for caring. If the
White House dispatched a drone to circle Boehner’s home, the front-page story
in the New York Times would
be on the speaker’s troubling paranoia.

On the other side, Republicans are not providing a plausible
counterforce to the Obama juggernaut. The most recent election was a Republican
debacle and what remains of the party does not inspire confidence.

Noonan describes the showdown in terms that are none too
flattering to the Republicans:

… Mr.
Obama thrives in chaos. He flourishes in unsettled circumstances and grooves on
his own calm. He spins an air of calamity, points fingers and garners support.
His only opponent is a hapless, hydra-headed House. America has a weakness for
winners, and Republicans just now do not look like winners. They have many
voices but no real voice, and no one saying anything that makes you stop and
think. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, is a singular character who tells you in
measured tones that we must have measured answers. Half the country finds his
politics to be too much to one side, but his temperament is not extreme and he
often looks reasonable. With this gift he ties his foes in knots to get what he
wants, which is higher taxes. He wants the rich to pay more and those he judges
to be in need to receive more. End of story. Debt and deficits don't interest
him, except to the extent he must give them lip service.

You cannot fight something with nothing. The last Republican
standard-bearer turned out to be a consultant-driven empty suit. Now, with the
Republican party in tatters, largely because he performed so poorly, Mitt Romney is going to step back on the political stage
by giving a speech at CPAC. Hasn’t he tarnished the Republican brand enough
already?

Ever the optimist, Noonan explains wistfully that Obama is
overplaying his hand and is doomed to fail. If she is right, the Republican
Party can only profit if it speaks with one voice and defines itself as a
plausible alternative.

But, how can the party speak with one voice when it could
not perform the most elementary of political tasks: offering a single reply to
the president’s State of the Union address.

Rand Paul may believe that he is standing up for principle,
but he has shown a lot more vainglory than principle. He seems not to understand Benjamin Franklin’s basic principle:
“We must, indeed, all hang
together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

8 comments:

A slight majority of Americans would rather suffer a progressive devaluation of capital and labor rather than address the cause of high unemployment, high energy costs, high education costs, high welfare costs, high medical and pharmaceutical costs, ever expanding military and security interventions, and illegal immigration.

As for the sequester, it was the Democrats' choice. They would prefer to maintain an illusion, rather than pass a budget, which does not increase the burden on taxpayers beyond 60% of gross income. Unfortunately, a slight majority of Americans vote for redistribution of income from their family, friends, and neighbors.

Everyone wants to enjoy a beachfront property in Hawaii and they want it now. To fulfill this dream, they're not only willing to sponsor corruption through theft and fraud, but they also rationalize a general devaluation of human life (e.g. abortion).

Is progressive corruption now conclusive? It seems to be for a slight majority of Americans.

Also, most people are not well informed. A friend asked me on the phone, what do you think is going to happen if they don't reach an agreement? I said nothing. It's a ruse. Most likely they will pass a resolution to revisit in June.